The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story

There is some matter for surprise in the fact that Brutus is an ideal portrait of Shakespeare. Disillusion usually brings a certain bitter sincerity, a measure of realism, into artistic work; but its first effect on Shakespeare was to draw out all the kindliness in him; Brutus is Shakespeare at his sweetest and best. Yet the soul-suffering of the man has a.s.suredly improved his art: Brutus is a better portrait of him than Biron, Valentine, Romeo, or Antonio, a more serious and bolder piece of self-revealing even than Orsino. Shakespeare is not afraid now to depict the deep underlying kindness of his nature, his essential goodness of heart. A little earlier, and occupied chiefly with his own complex growth, he could only paint sides of himself; a little later, and the personal interest absorbed all others, so that his dramas became lyrics of anguish and despair. Brutus belongs to the best time, artistically speaking, to the time when pa.s.sion and pain had tried the character without benumbing the will or distracting the mind: it is a masterpiece of portraiture, and stands in even closer relation to Hamlet than Romeo stands to Orsino. As Shakespeare appears to us in Brutus at thirty-seven, so he was when they bore him to his grave at fifty-two--the heart does not alter greatly.

Let no one say or think that in all this I am drawing on my imagination; what I have said is justified by all that Brutus says and does from one end of the play to the other. According to his custom, Shakespeare has said it all of himself very plainly, and has put his confession into the mouth of Brutus on his very first appearance (Act i. sc. 2):

"Ca.s.sius Be not deceived: if I have veiled my look I turn the trouble of my countenance Merely upon myself. Vexed I am Of late with pa.s.sions of some difference, Conceptions only proper to myself, Which gives some soil, perhaps, to my behaviours, But let not therefore my good friends be grieved,-- Among which number, Ca.s.sius, be you one,-- Nor construe any further in neglect, Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war, Forgets the shows of love to other men."

What were these "different pa.s.sions," complex personal pa.s.sions, too, which had vexed Brutus and changed his manners even to his friends?

There is no hint of them in Plutarch, no word about them in the play. It was not "poor Brutus," but poor Shakespeare, racked by love and jealousy, tortured by betrayal, who was now "at war with himself."

I a.s.sume the ident.i.ty of Brutus with Shakespeare before I have absolutely proved it because it furnishes the solution to the difficulties of the play. As usual, Coleridge has given proof of his insight by seeing and stating the chief difficulty, without, however, being able to explain it, and as usual, also, the later critics have followed him as far as they can, and in this case have elected to pa.s.s over the difficulty in silence. Coleridge quotes some of the words of Brutus when he first thinks of killing Caesar, and calls the pa.s.sage a speech of Brutus, but it is in reality a soliloquy of Brutus, and must be considered in its entirety. Brutus says:

"It must be by his death: and for my part, I know no personal cause to spurn at him But for the general. He would be crowned:-- How that might change his nature, there's the question?

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder, And that craves wary walking. Crown him?--that; And then, I grant, we put a sting in him That at his will he may do danger with.

The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins Remorse from power: and to speak truth of Caesar, I have known his affections swayed More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof, That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber-upwards turns his face; But when he once attains the topmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend. So Caesar may: Then, lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel Will bear no colour for the thing he is, Fashion it thus: that, what he is, augmented, Would run to these and these extremities: And therefore think him as a serpent's egg, Which, hatched, would as his kind grow mischievous; And kill him in the sh.e.l.l."

Coleridge's comment on this deserves notice. He wrote: "This speech is singular; at least, I do not at present see into Shakespeare's motive, his _rationale_, or in what point of view he meant Brutus'

character to appear. For surely ... nothing can seem more discordant with our historical preconceptions of Brutus, or more lowering to the intellect of the Stoico-Platonic tyrannicide, than the tenets here attributed to him--to him, the stern Roman republican; namely, that he would have no objection to a king, or to Caesar, a monarch in Rome, would Caesar but be as good a monarch as he now seems disposed to be!

How, too, could Brutus say that he found no personal cause--none in Caesar's past conduct as a man? Had he not pa.s.sed the Rubicon? Had he not entered Rome as a conqueror? Had he not placed his Gauls in the Senate? Shakespeare, it may be said, has not brought these things forward. True;--and this is just the ground of my perplexity. What character did Shakespeare mean his Brutus to be?"

All this is sound criticism, and can only be answered by the truth that Shakespeare from the beginning of the play identified himself with Brutus, and paid but little attention to the historic Brutus whom he had met in Plutarch. Let us push criticism a little further, and we shall see that this is the only possible way to read the riddle. We all know why Plutarch's Brutus killed Caesar; but why does Shakespeare's Brutus kill the man he so esteems? Because Caesar may change his nature when king; because like the serpent's egg he may "grow mischievous"? But when he speaks "truth" of Caesar he has to admit Caesar's goodness. The "serpent's egg" reason then is inapplicable. Besides, when speaking of himself on the plains of Philippi, Shakespeare's Brutus explicitly contradicts this false reasoning:

"I know not how But I do find it cowardly and vile, _For fear of what might fall_, so to prevent The term of life."

It would seem, therefore, that Brutus did not kill Caesar, as one crushes a serpent's egg, to prevent evil consequences. It is equally manifest that he did not do it for "the general," for if ever "the general" were shown to be despicable and worthless it is in this very play, where the citizens murder Cinna the poet because he has the same name as Cinna the conspirator, and the lower cla.s.ses are despised as the "rabblement," "the common herd," with "chapped hands," "sweaty night-caps," and "stinking breath."

It is Dr. Brandes' idea and not Shakespeare's that Brutus is a "man of uncompromising character and principle." That is the Brutus of Plutarch, who finds in his stern republican love of the common good an ethical motive for killing the ambitious Caesar. But Shakespeare had no understanding of the republican ideal, and no sympathy with the public; accordingly, his Brutus has no adequate reason for contriving Caesar's death. Shakespeare followed Plutarch in freeing Brutus from the suspicion of personal or interested motive, but he didn't see that by doing this he made his Brutus a conspirator without a cause, a murderer without a motive. The truth is our gentle poet could never find a convincing ground for cold-blooded murder. It will be remembered that Macbeth only murders, as the deer murders, out of fear, and the fact that his Brutus can find no justification of any sort for killing Caesar, confirms our view of Shakespeare's gentle kindness. The "uncompromising character and principle" of the severe republican we find in Plutarch, sit uneasily on Shakespeare's Brutus; it is apparent that the poet had no conception of what we call a fanatic. His difficulties arise from this limitation of insight. He begins to write the play by making Brutus an idealized portrait of himself; he, therefore, dwells on Brutus' perfect n.o.bility, sincerity, and unselfishness, but does not realize that the more perfect he makes Brutus, the more clear and cogent Brutus' motive must be for undertaking Caesar's a.s.sa.s.sination.

In this confusion Shakespeare's usually fine instinct is at fault, and he blunders from mistake to mistake. His idealizing tendency makes him present Brutus as perfect, and at the same time he uses the historical incident of the anonymous letters, which goes to show Brutus as conceited and vain. If these letters influenced Brutus--and they must be taken to have done so, or else why were they introduced?--we have a n.o.ble and unselfish man murdering out of paltry vanity. In Plutarch, where Brutus is depicted as an austere republican, the incident of the letters only throws a natural shade of doubt on the rigid principles by which alone he is supposed to be guided. We all feel that rigid principles rest on pride, and may best be led astray through pride. But Shakespeare's Brutus is pure human sweetness, and the letters are worse than out of place when addressed to him. Shakespeare should never have used this incident; it is a blot on his conception.

All through the first acts of the play Brutus is incredible, for he is in an impossible position. Shakespeare simply could not find any valid reason why his _alter ego_, Brutus, should kill Caesar. But from the moment the murder is committed to the end of the play Brutus- Shakespeare is at peace with himself. And as soon as the dramatist lets himself go and paints Brutus with entire freedom and frankness, he rises to the height of tragic pathos, and we can all recognize the original of the portrait. At first Brutus is merely ideal; his perfect unsuspiciousness--he trusts even Antony; his transparent honesty--he will have no other oath among the conspirators

"Than honesty to honesty engaged";

his hatred of bloodshed--he opposes Ca.s.sius, who proposes to murder Antony; all these n.o.ble qualities may be contrasted with the subtler shortcomings which make of Hamlet so vital a creation. Hamlet is suspicious even of Ophelia; Hamlet is only "indifferent honest"; Hamlet makes his friends swear to keep the ghost's appearance a profound secret; Hamlet lives from the beginning, while Brutus at first is a mere bundle of perfections individualized only by that personal intimate confession which I have already quoted, which, however, has nothing to do with the play. But later in the drama Shakespeare begins to lend Brutus his own weaknesses, and forthwith Brutus lives. His insomnia is pure Shakespeare:

"Since Ca.s.sius first did whet me against Caesar, I have not slept."

The character of Brutus is superbly portrayed in that wonderful scene with Ca.s.sius in the fourth act. With all the superiority of conscious genius he treats his confederate as a child or madman, much as Hamlet treats Rosencrantz and Guildenstern:

"Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?"

Ca.s.sius is mean, too, whereas Brutus is kindly and generous to a degree:

"For I can raise no money by vile means: By heaven, I had rather coin my heart, And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash By any indirection....

- - - - - - - - - - When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, To lock such rascal counters from his friends, Be ready, G.o.ds, with all your thunderbolts, Dash him to pieces."

And, above all, as soon as Ca.s.sius appeals to his affection, Brutus is disarmed:

"O Ca.s.sius, you are yoked with a lamb That carries anger, as the flint bears fire; Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark, And straight is cold again."

This is the best expression of Shakespeare's temper; the "hasty spark"

is Hamlet's temper, as we have seen, and Macbeth's, and Romeo's.

And now everything that Brutus does or says is Shakespeare's best. In a bowl of wine he buries "all unkindness." His affection for Ca.s.sius is not a virtue to one in especial. The scene in the fourth act, in which he begs the pardon of his boy Lucius, should be learned by heart by those who wish to understand our loving and lovable Shakespeare. This scene, be it remarked, is not in Plutarch, but is Shakespeare's own invention. His care for the lad's comfort, at a time when his own life is striking the supreme hour, is exquisitely pathetic. Then come his farewell to Ca.s.sius and his lament over Ca.s.sius' body; then the second fight and the n.o.bly generous words that hold in them, as flowers their perfume, all Shakespeare's sweetness of nature:

"My heart doth joy, that yet in all my life I found no man, but he was true to me."

And then night hangs upon the weary, sleepless eyes, and we are all ready to echo Antony's marvellous valediction:

"This was the n.o.blest Roman of them all; - - - - - - - - - - - - His life was gentle; and the elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, 'This was a man!'"

But this Brutus was no murderer, no conspirator, no narrow republican fanatic, but simply gentle Shakespeare discovering to us his own sad heart and the sweetness which suffering had called forth in him.

CHAPTER VII. DRAMAS OF REVENGE AND JEALOUSY: HAMLET.

"A beautiful, pure and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which makes the hero, sinks beneath a burden which it can neither bear nor throw off; every duty is holy to him,--this too hard. The impossible is required of him,--not the impossible in itself, but the impossible to him. How he winds, turns, agonizes, advances and recoils, ever reminded, ever reminding himself, and at last almost loses his purpose from his thoughts, without ever again recovering his peace of mind...."--"_Hamlet_" by _Goethe_.

Goethe's criticism of Hamlet is so much finer than any English criticism that I am glad to quote it. It will serve, I think, as a standard to distinguish the best criticism of the past from what I shall set forth in the course of this a.n.a.lysis. In this chapter I shall try to show what new light our knowledge of Shakespeare throws on the play, and conversely what new light the play throws on its maker.

The first moment of disillusion brought out, as we have seen in Brutus, all the kindness in Shakespeare's nature. He will believe in men in spite of experience; but the idealistic pose could not be kept up: sooner or later Shakespeare had to face the fact that he had been befooled and scorned by friend and mistress--how did he meet it? Hamlet is the answer: Shakespeare went about nursing dreams of revenge and murder. Disillusion had deeper consequences; forced to see other men as they were, he tried for a moment to see himself as he was. The outcome of that objective vision was Hamlet--a masterpiece of self-revealing.

Yet, when he wrote "Hamlet," nothing was clear to him; the significance of the catastrophe had only dawned upon him; he had no notion how complete his soul-shipwreck was, still less did he dream of painting himself realistically in all his obsequious flunkeyism and ungovernable sensuality. He saw himself less idealistically than heretofore, and, trying to look at himself fairly, honestly, he could not but accuse himself of irresolution at the very least; he had hung on with Herbert, as the sonnets tell us, hoping to build again the confidence which had been ruined by betrayal, hoping he knew not what of gain or place, to the injury of his own self-respect; while brooding all the time on quite impossible plans of revenge, impossible, for action had been "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." Hamlet could not screw his courage to the sticking point, and so became a type for ever of the philosopher or man of letters who, by thinking, has lost the capacity for action.

Putting ourselves in Shakespeare's place for the moment we see at once why he selected this story for treatment at this time. He knew, none better, that no young aristocrat would have submitted patiently to the wrong he had suffered from Lord Herbert; he created Laertes to show how instant and determined such a man would be in taking murderous revenge; but he still felt that what others would regard as faults, his irresolution and shrinking from bloodshed were in themselves n.o.bler, and so, whilst half excusing, half realizing himself, he brought forth a masterpiece. This brooding on revenge, which is the heart and explanation of his great play, shows us how little Shakespeare cared for Herbert, how completely he had condemned him. The soliloquy on this point in "Hamlet" is the most characteristic thing in the drama:

"This is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murder'd Prompted to my revenge by heaven and h.e.l.l, Must, like a wh.o.r.e, unpack my heart with words, And fall a-cursing like a very drab."

Shakespeare is thinking of Herbert's betrayal; "here I am," he says, "prompted to revenge by reason and custom, yet instead of acting I fall a-cursing like a drab." But behind his irresolution is his hatred of bloodshed: he could whip out his sword and on a sudden kill Polonius, mistaking him for the king (Herbert), but he could not, in cold blood, make up his mind to kill and proceed to execution. Like his own Hubert, Shakespeare had to confess:

"Within this bosom never enter'd yet The dreadful motion of a murderous thought."

He had none of the direct, pa.s.sionate, conscienceless resolution of Laertes. He whips himself to anger against the king by thinking of Herbert in the king's place; but lackey-like has to admit that mere regard for position and power gives him pause: Lord Herbert was too far above him:

"There's such divinity doth hedge a king, That treason can but peep to what it would."

Shakespeare's personal feeling dominates and inspires the whole play.

One crucial instance will prove this. Why did Hamlet hate his mother's lechery? Most men would hardly have condemned it, certainly would not have suffered their thoughts to dwell on it beyond the moment; but to Hamlet his mother's faithlessness was horrible, shameful, degrading, simply because Hamlet-Shakespeare had identified her with Miss Fitton, and it was Miss Fitton's faithlessness, it was her deception he was condemning in the bitterest words he could find. He thus gets into a somewhat unreal tragedy, a pa.s.sionate intensity which is otherwise wholly inexplicable. This is how he talks to his mother:

"Have you eyes?

Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed, And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes ...

... ... ... What devil was't That thus cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight, Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all, Or but a sickly part of one true sense Could not so mope.

O, shame! where is thy blush?"

If anyone can imagine that this is the way a son thinks of a mother's slip he is past my persuading. In all this Shakespeare is thinking of himself in comparison with Herbert; and his advice to his mother is almost as self-revealing, showing, as it does, what he would wish to say to Miss Fitton: